Complaining about Windows Vista is a national past time on Internet forums these days. Windows Vista 'costs too much', 'has onerous product activation', 'requires too much hardware', etc. These complaints are often followed up by a very simple boast: 'I'm just going to switch to Linux'. But in today's landscape, how viable is that statment? Is the threat to switch to Linux an empty one, or is it entirely possible?"

They probably don't develop too many games because there is a small fraction of computers with Linux on it. So, the main reason is a economical one: less potential customers.

There is also the API, Microsoft must be lauded for pushing hard Direct X and improve it to the level it is today (of course it is not perfect).

I suspect that there is one more reason, but it is based more on people I know use Linux (or *BSD for the matter) and I can be totally wrong on that: average Linux (*BSD) users (even the ones that also use Windows) are a bit different of Windows ones, tend to be a bit more technical and spend more time tuning/learning than playing. On this regard, they probably are less prone to expend the same amount of money to buy games as a regular Windows user.

No developers will make a serious game for linux because:
1. Linux only has very low usage share, about 0.4%
2. The game must be released in GPL.

1. The original post raised a point: you can put a whole linux OS together with the game, so that it can be run anywhere. Though I think it is an overly-engineered solution, it did not attempt to say develop a game targeting linux only.

2. No if you develop a game for Linux, you DO NOT have to release it under GPL, depending on what toolkit you use.

No developers will make a serious game for linux because:
1. Linux only has very low usage share, about 0.4%
2. The game must be released in GPL.

1. There are lots of stats which say different things. That one is on the low end.

2. Oh really? Well then, I'll just download Doom3 right now. Remember Doom3? Released for Linux the same day as for Windows?
# apt-get doom3...
Nope, didn't work. Lots of non-GPL'd stuff, including games, are released for Linux.

No developers will make a serious game for linux because:
1. Linux only has very low usage share, about 0.4%

Actually, it's probably closer to 2.5%...but let's not get into that sterile discussion again.

2. The game must be released in GPL.

That is completely and utterly false.

The reason there are few commercial games for Linux is that the PC games market *in general* has been hurting for quite a few years now, and only a handful of large companies can make it (by opposition to the console game market, which is thriving).

Most game development these days is for consoles, with the PC market increasingly considered an afterthought.

No developers will make a serious game for linux because:
1. Linux only has very low usage share, about 0.4%
2. The game must be released in GPL.

You obviously know nothing about the GPL or software licensing in general. It is not true that games and programs must be released under the GPL for Linux. Programs can be run on a Linux system that are released under any license including proprietary ones. That is why you can run Acrobat Reader, Flashplayer, Sun Java, Opera all released under proprietary licenses.